


Swarm

by Temaris



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:12:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temaris/pseuds/Temaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Wraith are part insect even now...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swarm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a hallowe'en challenge one year, to the prompt: swarm.

The first time I heard about the Lanteans, I was so excited. The Ancestors had returned! The whispers ran through a galaxy. They had come back, they had never promised but we had hoped, and hope was given wings.

Then the Wraith woke -- of course the Wraith woke. Their ancient enemy had returned, and they knew it. And it was terrible. World after world emptied and left desolate. We didn't know-- we hoped that the Lanteans would come. We prayed they would come. That the great city would sear through the stars and clean them.

They didn't come. We heard, in dribs and drabs, that there were few of them. That the great city was old -- not merely ancient but worn out, a candle without a wick. No fire.

Amali came in one day. She said, "I've seen them!" and she told us -- over and over, every time someone new came, about the four of them. She was smug with it, and I knew the story wasn't complete. She told me secretly, that night when we were safely tucked into our beds below the roof. Private, but safe. Far away from anyone who might cheat the daughters of Endas out of partner-contract.

"He kissed me," she whispered. She was sitting in the bed, the sheets pulled up high, her arms wrapped around her knees. She hugged herself in glee. "Kissed truly." Her eyes were dreamy and I giggled -- we were all of sixteen -- and teased her.

"What, the old, fat one?"

"No! The Lantean. The *true* Lantean," she added, and I don't know where she knew that from. I suppose from one of them, but I didn't know for a long, long time what she meant. She sighed. "He's so beautiful. He looked at me, and I *knew*. We had a *connection*."

"I bet he didn't even know you were there." Because she was serving drinks at the negotiations, not paraded as a treasure offering. We didn't know them well enough for that.

"He *did*! I'm telling you. You're just jealous," she pouted, and she pretended to slide down into the bed, ready to sleep.

"Amali..." I whined, and she turned back to me at once, as eager to tell as I was to hear. Her eyes glittered brightly, and she clasped her hands together as she spoke.

"He came out to the back to talk to me --"

"Really?"

She blushed a little, I think. It was hard to tell. "He asked the way to the privy." I snorted, and she cried out, "No! He asked *me*, he could have asked anyone."

I accepted it as truth. I have doubted it, and then believed it by turns. I have never been able to decide if he knew.

"And --" I asked breathlessly. I had no idea, not then, that this was the turning of the galaxy.

"And," she paused dramatically, her eyes closing, "And I told him." She grinned at me.

"Ama!"

"And then I took him to the right path, and pointed it out, and I was standing right there, and he smelled like the Vethos plant in autumn, and I thought he was just going to say thank you and leave, and he stopped and looked around, and then he kissed me."

I think she'd been afraid when it happened. I think they were on their own, and he was big and strong, and she was a serving girl and he was one of the Lanteans. But she didn't remember any of that. She remembered --

"He tasted sweet, like manthas and bread,and he held me -- he was so strong," she said with a shiver, eyes glazed, "Eremie, he -- I would have done it." We stared at each other. Sixteen was time and past to be giving children back, but neither of us had chosen, not yet. Maybe we were too close. Maybe our father should have fostered us apart, not kept us together.

I am glad he did not.

"And then he bit my lip, and when there was blood, he kissed it better, and then he said he was sorry and he should be going and his eyes changed, and he went to the privies."

"And?"

"And? That was it! Wasn't it wonderful?"

Well. Time passed, and time passed, and maybe Amali hadn't been quite as truthful as I thought, because her belly swelled, and her eyes brightened, and six moons later, she had a child.

She called him Mikla.

For his father.

* * *

[Comment on my LJ](http://temaris.livejournal.com/580397.html?mode=reply)


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